STAR
WARS

Miracl:
confusion and contradiction

Last Friday, the U.S. army targeted its chemical laser 'Miracl'
at an ageing satellite in "an attempt to measure whether a laser
beam could damage the satellite's ability to operate." Strangely
enough, even today it still isn't know whether the victim, MSTI-3,
was damaged in any way.

In fact, it's not even known what really happened during the test
and what its objectives were. There are contradicting reports,
probably owing to contradicting statements by officials. The latest
version is that Mircal was fired two times for less than five seconds
each -- yesterday, Army Col. Richard Bridges, a Pentagon spokesman,
was reported as saying the laser was fired twice, the first time for
less than one second, the second time about 10 seconds.

You may think the whole story had been a bit obscure from the
beginning, and such a view is most certainly supported by various
confusing reports available up to now. One claims, for instance, that
neither the satellite nor its target point, the spacecraft's infrared
camera, was damaged or disabled in the two test firings. Within the
same paragraph, the Pentagon was quoted as saying the test was proof
that satellites were vulnerable to laser weapons. Am I the only one
who thinks this is somewhat contradictory, at least without further
explanation that so far has not been available anywhere?

The whole story has so far left just uncertainty and, what else
should I call the following, propaganda: "As many as 30 nations
may already be able to use low-power lasers to blind the sensors on
satellites used by the U.S. military to monitor potentially hostile
countries." They may or may not. As
many as 30 nations also may or may not be
able to fly to the moon but don't do so. One billion Chinese may
or may not jump off their tables at the same
time, causing the Earth to leave its orbit around the sun, but
surprisingly they haven't done so either until now.

The Star Wars thing is sometimes mentioned by the mainstream
media. Built by TRW, Miracl is an offshoot of the Reagan
administration's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI,) and ironically
so is MSTI-3 (cf. next article.) What no report so far mentioned is
the military-industrial complex that's all behind that -- the U.S.
satellites and the U.S. anti-satellite weapons (and yes, there are
quite af few of them planned.) TRW, for instance, is also a satellite
builder. Almost all of them are also into the anti-satellite
business. It's a matter of taste whether one finds that only logical
or rather perverse.

An mentioned earlier, you may want to get a copy of the next issue
of TELE-satellite International which has some more interesting
details on the Star Wars revival.

The STEP 4 satellite is a 390 kg "scientific research"
spacecraft designed and built by TRW Space and Electronics Group
[what a coincidence] in co-operation with Orbital's Space Systems
Group. It is the last in a series of STEP missions designed to
utilise a common satellite platform to host multiple space science
experiments. For this mission, STEP 4 will host three separate
Department of Defense experiments that will study the Earth's
atmosphere and ionosphere.

That's the official version. Funnily, MSTI-3 was described
similarly when it was launched: "The MSTI-3 satellite is
designed to gather background data on the Earths atmosphere and
terrestrial environment." It was actually designed to monitor
missile launches.

LAUNCHES

Brazil
takes to space

The first Brazilian rocket launch is imminent -- it may take
place any day between today and November 10. It will deploy a
satellite, which has been fully designed in this country. Really?

Not really. A big contribution to the development of the satellite
has been made by Russia, which sold the altitude control and
orientation system components to the Brazilians at a reasonable
price, reported Itar-Tass. The 115-kg satellite, devised at the Space
Research Institute in Sao Jose dos Canpos, is to be put into an orbit
at an altitude of 700 km.

What it actually does is more than unclear: while Itar-Tass said
it was a weather satellite, other reports claim it's intended to aid
environmental monitoring from its low Earth orbit. The spacecraft,
which cost some US$3 million, is called SCD-2 which reportedly stands
for Data Gathering Satellite.

The 19-metres-high rocket has a launch weight of 50 tonnes, 41
tonnes of which are solid fuel. It is capable of lifting satellites
of up to 350 kg in orbits at altitudes from 250 to 1,000 km. Giving
possible commercial launch activities an advantage, Brazil's
Alcantara launch site is close to the equator -- just 150 miles to
the south. That means that satellites with a higher weight can be
launched than from other sites. "It's a market that will involve
billions of dollars in the next few years," Brazilian President
Cardoso said.

SATELLITES

Mesat
3 planned

Binariang Satellite Systems Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Binariang
Bhd, is currently negotiating with four satellite manufacturers. One
of them will build the company's third satellite, Measat 3.

It's not a big surprise that the companies involved are Hughes
Space and Communication Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp, Loral Space and
Communications Ltd and French-based Aerospatiale. The decision is
expected by the end of the year. Measat-3 will probably cost more
than the first two satellites in orbit, Measat 1 and Measat 2. "But
it will not exceed US$300 million," Commercial Operations senior
manager Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said.

Binariang is the owner and operator of Malaysia's first regional
satellite system. The troubles with the region's currencies,
including the ringgit, had no impact on the company as its revenue is
in US dollars.

Celestri
redesigned

It seems nowadays there are no reliable news anymore. Remember
those recent bits about Motorola seeking launch services for up to
500 satellites between 2000 and 2010?

It's not that those stories were untrue. The problem instead is
that even experts nowadays don't have any clue about what's hot and
what's not. The number of 500, other sources mentioned just 300 or
400 satellites, applies to systems with illustrative names such as
Celestri, MacroCell, Millennium and M-Star. Who can keep track with
such a deluge of planned systems, which number on top of that is
multiplying every time the U.S. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) auctions off yet another, even more remote and sinister corner
of the electromagnetic spectrum?

There's movement all the time. According to Satellite Week,
Millennium is dead  long live Celestri, albeit modified. The
magazine quoted a consultant as saying "Millennium is the only
one that looks not for real. It seems to have been replaced by
Celestri." Motorola in turn confirmed that Celestri has been
redesigned to utilise dual-payload satellites which will accommodate
Millennium services as well.

EchoStar
III begins in-orbit tests

Oh finally, a good old-fashioned press release. How I've been
yearning for one after all that odd stuff!

EchoStar Communications Corporation announced that EchoStar III,
its third Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), which launched
successfully on October 5, 1997, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, has
reached its FCC-assigned final orbit at 61.5 degrees West Longitude.

Final standard geostationary orbit was achieved after
approximately 15 days of various spacecraft manoeuvres managed and
implemented by Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of EchoStar's fleet
of satellites. EchoStar III was placed in its final location at 61.5
degrees West after completing a series of LAE (Liquid Apogee Engine)
thruster burns. The solar panels and antennas were successfully
deployed, as expected, on October 15, 1997. In-orbit payload testing
begun today, and is expected to continue for several weeks.

RUPERTWATCH

New
Rules for Rupert

U.K. telecommunications regulator Oftel said that new rules are
required to promote competition in the offering of multi-channel
television packages.

It's all about Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB package, of course -- the
U.K.'s main supplier of basic entertainment channels as well as of
premium live sports and subscription movie channels.

Oftel Director General Don Cruickshank told the European Cable
Communications annual conference that the question was "how to
ensure that competition at the retail level is not distorted or
restricted by market power at the wholesale level -- that is, by
British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC's dominant position in premium
programming.

"It is essential to a competitive market in television
services that a dominant operator should not be able to leverage
market power from premium to basic programs," he said. One
possible approach was an explicit obligation on dominant programmers
(BSkyB) to supply premium channels on fair, reasonable and
non-discriminatory terms.

Cruickshank demanded BSkyB be required by the U.K. fair trading
authorities to publish transparent accounting statements detailing
cost attributions and transfer pricing, in other words: "regular
published accounts audited to a regulatory audit test,"
something many media moguls do not like at all.

CHANNELS

Home
Shopping goes Sci Fi. Get your own personal flying saucer!

Barry Diller's Home Shopping Network (HSN) teams up with
Canadian distiller Seagram Co. Ltd.to operate Universal Television --
and that includes the cable channels USA Networks and Sci-Fi Channel
which Seagram recently acquired from Viacom Inc.

It's a long story how Seagram got hold of the two channels; as a
matter of fact, it took 16 months of judicial action. But then, the
US$1.7 billion Seagram had to pay for the remaining 50-percent
interest from Viacom seemed a bit too much. That's where Barry Diller
comes into play, the inventor of QVC and now owner of HSN Inc.

Under the terms of the deal, HSN is receiving Universal's
television assets, including domestic operations and 50 percent of
the international operations of USA Network and the Sci-Fi Network.
In exchange, Universal will receive US$4.075 billion in the form of
45% of HSN's outstanding common equity equivalents plus approximately
US$1.2 billion in cash.

The acquired Universal assets will be combined with HSN's Home
Shopping Network, Silver King Broadcasting and SF Broadcasting's 25
broadcast stations. Liberty Media, an affiliated programming company
of Tele-Communications Inc., will own 15 percent of the new company
and have the right to own up to 25 percent.

ONLINE

Ariane
5's blind passengers

The second test flight of the new European launcher Ariane 5
will take place in November. Despite earlier announcements, it will
have in fact carry some payload.

There will be Phase 3D, one of the most expensive
amateur radio satellites ever built. There will also be some payload
dummies (or test satellites) called Maqsat, but they seem to have
developed a life of their own. Apart from recording the conditions
within the rocket during the launch, they will also host no less that
five additional experiments known under the common name of Teamsat
(Technology, science and Education experiments Added to Maqsat.)

My favourite actually is the Orbiting Debris Device (ODD.) The
Maqsat-H satellite is painted with contrasting patterns (75% white
and 25% black) to support testing and calibration of ground-based
optical and radar stations in Europe. The contrasting paint should
also allow detection of the rotation or tumbling of Maqsat-H.
Additionally, surface paint degradation will be studied, the European
Space Agency said in a statement.

The costs for Teamsat, most of which experiments are more or less
last-minute fellow travelling, were kept to a bare minimum (less than
one million ECU) -- if you happen to have another bare million left,
just transfer it to my account. (Please, email me for details.)

Additional information, including photographs taken by on-board
cameras, can be found after launch [if this one won't fail, that is]
on the Teamsat web site at